


Stories from the Abbreviations Verse

by Scribe



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe/pseuds/Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a story called Everything Is Abbreviated (or "the lotrips a cappella AU") which has been much discussed but exists mostly inside the author's head. These are stand-alone bits and pieces from that 'verse, for msilverstar who won me in the help_pakistan auction. They are also something of my own "take your fandom to work (er, school)" story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msilverstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msilverstar/gifts).



> Thanks to fiercynn for a wonderful beta, and to sandelwood and eff_reality who inspired/encouraged this crazy idea in the first place.
> 
> As most of these snippets rely on the immense amount of headcanon I have for this 'verse, I will include very short cheat-sheets with relevant facts at the beginning of each chapter. Not necessary, but probably a good idea to read.
> 
> FYI, here's the a cappella group roster:
> 
> Ian McKellen (senior)  
> Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, John Rhys Davies (juniors)  
> Billy Boyd, Sean Astin (sophomores)  
> Dom Monaghan, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom (freshmen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Characters: Dom Monaghan, Billy Boyd  
> Chapter Pairings: None

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the tiny comment ficlet that started it all.

Dom joins a cappella almost by accident. The activities fair is blisteringly hot, rows and rows of tables set out on the green with posters and music and various giveaways. Someone thrusts a flyer at him; someone else half-yells over the noise,

"Do you want to end world hunger?"

Dom kind of mumbles something and pretends he sees someone he knows in another direction. How do you say no to that, anyway?

He weaves through to the performance arts area, looking for his roommate, but a quick scan reveals no Elijah. It does, however, reveal an adorable green-eyed boy sitting behind a table, chin propped in his hands and wearing an enormous purple and yellow striped hat with an air of resigned cheerfulness.

"Hi there! Do you like to sing?" he calls, coming alive when he notices Dom looking. He has a Scottish accent, which is both completely out of place and ridiculously endearing.

"Um, I guess?" offers Dom. It's not like he's going to admit that he was staring for a totally different reason. He glances quickly at the sign on the table. It says F.O.T.S. in big letters, which is rather unhelpful, and All Male A Cappella underneath that, which is moreso.

"Well, come on over! I'll give you the spiel."

And really, what's to lose? He can just go have an excuse to talk to this guy for a few minutes and then say he's not interested, no harm done, one cute acquaintance made.

Or so he thinks, at the time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapater Characters: Sean Bean, Ian McKellen  
> Chapter Pairings: none

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVANT 'VERSE CANON: FOTS is the a cappella group the boys belong to. It stands for Fellowship of the Singers. Ian is the musical director, and the only senior in the group.

He'd never know for sure, but Bean flattered himself that the choice of a new Theater Assistant had been an easy one. He'd been working on sets for the theater clubs since his first month at FU and was, in his opinion, both more talented and more dedicated than anyone except the departing seniors.

The truth of it was that he loved the shop. Carpentry had nothing to do with his major or his professional plans, but getting the chance to build something with his hands, something simple and tangible and useful, was the most relaxing thing he could imagine. Sometimes it felt like FOTS rehearsal and building sets were the only times he stopped thinking about chemistry and biology and genetics, graphs and problem sets and the experiment he was running for work study.

He was making changes, now that he was in charge. The freshman would be trained rather than stuck on the shitty unskilled jobs. He was setting up a system of delegation that would eventually run on its own, without everyone turning to him for every next step of every task. There were his own projects, too. He knew they were too ambitious but that didn't stop him from using his key to open the theater on late nights and weekend afternoons, putting in hours he didn't have reorganizing the tool room or switching the scrap shelves from horizontal to vertical so anyone could reach them without needing a ladder. Those were his favorite hours, surrounded by quiet and the comforting smell of sawdust, no fast approaching opening night to make him cut corners on his designs.

Some nights, with no discernable pattern, Ian would slip in through the side door Bean had propped with a stage weight and stay for a few hours, rehearsing his lines. They were never from the shows Bean was building; someone with a guaranteed place in every production by the theater department itself was in an entirely different sphere than the student clubs. Ian got four comp tickets to each department show and one of them was always Bean's if he asked. He liked to go when he could find the free time, liked sitting in the audience and hearing the echoes in Ian's speech that he recognized, fragments from the shop that he'd known with less context but equal passion.

You were aware, with Ian, that right now was the time you'd be referencing one day when you said you know him when. He was already working off-campus in professional theater, juggling too many rehearsal schedules and staying in the city during every vacation. Most of the time he seemed a little too talented, a little too fashionable and mature and charming to really be an undergraduate. Even in FOTS he was always a little apart. He shared the same jokes with them, the same successes and horrible trainwreck failures on the first time through a new song, but he was also the closest thing to an authority figure they had.

Those hours in the shop were different. They'd never talked about it, but Bean didn't need to be told that he might be the only person who'd ever watched Ian fight his way through a new script. Maybe one of two, if you counted Ian's elusive housemate Christopher. He also knew what he was looking at, although he was just as secure in his own sexuality as Ian was in his. No one could deny that Ian, sprawled elegantly on some shitty metal table, sketching the beginnings of gestures with his highlighter toward a shelf full of impact drivers, could be almost unbearably beautiful.

Whenever he saw the door open out of the corner of his eye Bean powered down the saw, the grinder, the grumbling pneumatic air tank. It didn't matter if he was in the middle of the stage extension he was trying to build. There were always quiet tasks to be done, after all, measuring and cleaning and painting, and he liked the way Ian's voice coaxed the first tentative meaning off the printed page.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter characters: Dom Monaghan, Elijah Woood  
> Chapter pairings: Dom/Elijah, Dom/Viggo mentioned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVANT VERSECANON: Dom and Elijah are freshmen roommates who have been hooking up for a while before this snippet occurs, with no feelings on either side other than horniness. At this point they are already members of FOTS with Viggo and the others.

"Elwood, you have to let me blow you," said Dom, slamming into their room one Wednesday evening. It was always hard to tell whether the slamming was part of the grand entrance because, as Elijah had discovered on the days Dom had early class, it was nearly impossible to close their door without slamming it.

"Yeah, pretty sure threatening someone into sex counts as rape," he said, glancing up from his reading. Dom had dumped his backpack on his bed and was rooting through it.

"Sorry, let me rephrase. Would you, Elijah Wood, do me the very kind favor of letting me perform oral sex upon you, if you think it might be enjoyable and not inconvenient?"

"Okay," he said after about half a second's consideration. "But, um, what?"

"Well. I…may have hooked up with Viggo?"

"You what?"

"I don't know! It just kind of happened!"

"How does that just kind of happen? Also, why doesn't it just kind of happen to me?"

"Baby, it's about to," said Dom, waggling his eyebrows. Elijah considered throwing his econ textbook, decided it was too heavy, and went with his pajama pants instead. They didn't even make it to Dom's side of the room.

"Seriously, though, spill."

"Okay, I missed photo lab last week, right? And Viggo said he had some work to do anyway and he could supervise me in the darkroom if I wanted to make it up."

Realization hit.

"Oh my god," Elijah said, amazed. "Oh my god, you boned your TA. I don't believe it. In your first semester of college! How am I ever going to beat that?"

"I didn't "bone" anyone," Dom said, making the air quotes like they pained him. "And you really need to stop using that word. Can I continue?"

"Go ahead. I'm still waiting to here how sex just happened to you."

"It wasn't sex! Well, not proper sex. It was just, we were waiting for water to cool down, do you know how boring that is? And he was like, do you wanna? And I said yes, and bam, on his knees."

"That is ridiculous."

"I tried to reciprocate! You know, after. But he was all, the water's probably ready now, let's go develop some film."

"So you did?"

"He completely switched into TA mode-" Elijah couldn't help sniggering at that, which got him an eyeroll- "and that was just that."

"Interesting. And you were just so…inspired that you had to come assault me?"

"Shut up. No, I'm going to his office hours on Friday."

"Ooh, office hours, I see-"

"And I have to be able to reciprocate," Dom said, blatantly talking over him now, "but I've never done it before. And, well, it has to be good, 'cause, um. So, what do you say? Help a guy out?"

"I don't think anyone would say no to that offer, Dom."

"Awesome. Move your knees."

"What, right now?"

"You have something better to do?"

Elijah looked at Dom, who'd come over to kneel in front of his bed, and then back at his reading on the income elasticity of demand.

Not really a hard choice.

 

It was, objectively speaking, not a particularly good blowjob. Dom had the basics down about as far as "no teeth," but he couldn't really figure out how to breathe, never mind things like rhythm and finesse. On the other hand, Elijah was seventeen and had never had anyone's mouth on his dick before.

It didn't last very long.

He also didn't manage a warning, so Dom ended up choking and then pulling off just in time to get a stripe of come down his face. It was kind of hilarious. Elijah really wanted a camera.

"That's a good look for you," he observed. Dom, still wheezing, shot him a glare and grabbed the pajama pants off the floor to clean himself up.

"Ugh," he said when he'd finally gotten his breath back, sounding so surprised that Elijah couldn't hold back his giggles. Dom pointed a finger of him, apparently thought better of it, and slammed off into the bathroom instead.

Elijah grinned at the ceiling. After a minute he pulled his pants back up, which felt like it used up his quota of movement for the next hour.

"That was a disaster," said Dom, slamming back in again. They really needed to get a doorstop or something. "I think I'd die of embarrassment if that happened with Viggo."

"Probably," said Elijah. "I guess you'll just have to practice some more."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter characters: Daisy (David) Wenham, Sean Astin  
> Chapter pairings: none major  
> Chapter warnings: discusses in some detail the series of queer teen suicides that were in the news October 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVANT VERSECANON: The school is Fictional University, which maybe explains the students' love for abbreviating everything. SAGA (Sexuality And Gender Alliance) is the queer and allied group on campus. Sean Astin is the president. Daisy Wenham is the pride coordinator. Daisy is an angry queer genderfucker who likes to make people question their assumptions, but does identify as male.

The Peace Circle was, to be honest, kind of underwhelming. It was just off the main path, a circle of red-orange bricks maybe eight feet across with the words for peace in various languages carved here and there. It certainly wasn't big enough for the fifty or so people who had gathered, spilling out gingerly onto the woodchips and ornamental shrubbery.

Someone had passed out the ubiquitous tea lights. Daisy found them mildly annoying, the way he did at every FU vigil; the wind was kicking up and people were paying more attention to relighting their candles, whispering curses or laughter when hot wax dripped on their hands, than they were to anyone speaking.

"The recent tragedies are a real reminder," Sean was saying, "of the privilege we have here at FU. Not to say that we don't have our own issues and problems, but we do live in a place where we can debate those issues, policies, things like that, because we are physically safe, because we do have the community and, and the support that you see here today. It's easy to forget that there are so many people in this country who don't have that privilege. So here are some facts to keep in mind."

"Suicide is the second leading cause of death on college campuses," said someone behind Daisy, and then Miranda picked up across the circle with,

"Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers."

"More than one third of LGB youth report having made a suicide attempt."

"Nine out of ten LGBT students experience harassment at school; three-fifths feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation; and about one-third skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe."

It was tastefully done, not too dramatic, just students reading solemnly from small pieces of paper. Daisy listened with half an ear. He knew all the statistics already, had proofread them for Sean and helped flyer campus with the same messages the night before.

There was a general shuffling as everyone turned from the final speaker to where Sean was stepping up onto a low bench to be seen.

"And now I'd like to have a moment of silence," he said, "in remembrance of Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase, Asher Brown and Billy Lucas, but also for all those people who have taken their own lives because of a queer identity who we haven't heard about, because no one knows that that was the reason that they…felt life was unlivable."

Daisy's first instinct was to close his eyes or bow his head, but everyone else seemed to just be staring somewhere into the middle distance. It was, for some reason, hard to concentrate on the suicides he was supposed to be thinking about. He found himself looking around the circle instead. Sean, standing on the ground now, was steady but looked somehow shocked, and he'd been fumbling his usually well-practiced words. Daisy wondered if this was history there, if he'd ever thought of killing himself or had known someone who had, if the recent news had hit too close to home.

Craig fidgeted next to him. Daisy glanced over and caught the slip of paper Craig had read from in the corner of his vision.

 _Nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt_ , it said.

It was startling to realize that many of the students in the circle were probably looking at him- he was wearing girl's jeans today, heels and eye shadow and his hair gelled in that fauxhawk the hip lesbians were all doing- and wondering the same things he'd been wondering about Sean.

It was odd, being pitied for something almost completely untrue. I've had an easy time of it, he wanted to tell them. His mother had emailed just the day before to say she'd read about the suicides in the news, and how were people on campus processing things, it was so terrible. He'd mentioned the vigil in his reply and then changed the subject. He didn't know how to say that it wasn't affecting him much. Yes, it was sad, but he'd already known that these things happened and they were people he'd never met, far from his life.

"Thank you," said Sean, breaking the silence. There was a collective exhale as everyone shifted and met each other's eyes again. Then it was on to a quick reminder of all the resources on campus, peer and professional counseling and the suicide hotline, and the vigil was over.

No one seemed to know exactly how to transition out of it. Asking the person next to you if they'd finished that problem set yet or if they were going to the improv show tonight didn't really seem appropriate. There was a lot of awkward shuffling and sad half-smiles of solidarity. As the circle began to shift apart people started hugging each other, exchanging quiet words. A girl from the school paper approached Sean, notebook at the ready, and he was already reaching out for Christine behind him as he turned to start the inevitable interview.

Daisy watched them for a moment. He was, honestly, happy being single. He didn't want to stay that way forever, sure, but at the moment he was only nineteen and thinking about other things, happy to be with his friends and not beholden to anyone in particular.

Just then, though, he wanted nothing more than someone's hand to hold like links in a barricade, like two mountain climbers bound together with a rope that promised: I will not leave you dangling over empty air, like a thirteen year old from California whose name he had already, shamefully, forgotten.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Characters: Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen, (Sean Bean, Andy Serkis, Bernard Hill)  
> Chapter Pairings: Viggo/Billy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVANT VERSECANON: FOTS members have one-syllable nicknames that are often just their first initials, as calling Viggo "V".

Of all the things Billy had expected to get shit for at university- his accent, his height, his sexuality, his hair, his music, the list seemed endless on those late nights he'd spent rereading an orientation packet from another continent- the idea of not being gay enough had never crossed his mind.

Queer enough, actually, was probably a better way to put it.

He went to maybe one or two SAGA events a year, things his friends had spent huge amounts of time and energy planning, but the weekly meetings had never appealed. It wasn't that he was in the closet or uncomfortable or ashamed, it just wasn't his scene. It was sometimes hard to be gay at SAGA. A queer man only interested in men was more acceptable, but polyamorous was better, or maybe pansexual, something nebulous and liberated.

Even gay might have sufficed if he'd born it with pride, with rainbows and protests and a fluent queer vocabulary. It just wasn't him, though. He'd figured out he was gay more than five years before, made his peace with it, and, well, moved on. He was more concerned with other things, politically as well as personally- he signed the petitions when they were passed his way, but when he was going to spend time or money trying to help the world he just felt that things like genocide and starvation were a higher priority than civil unions.

Besides, for all their talk about the fluidity of identity and the breaking of binaries the gay subset of SAGA was weirdly preoccupied with sorting themselves into tops and bottoms.

He didn't exactly get harassed for staying away (except on one notable occasion with rather a lot of alcohol involved), but almost all of his friends had sat him down to discuss it at one time or another. He got the feeling that they thought less of him, just a little bit, hints of disappointment and confusion that didn't really make any difference in friendship but were the last, tiniest, unconquerable barrier to actually being in a relationship.

The only one who might have overcome that obstacle was Viggo. He genuinely didn't care whether Billy joined SAGA, which was kind of ironic because he was the Political Outreach Coordinator and about as involved as it was possible to be if your name didn't start with "S" and end with "ean Astin." Billy occasionally wondered why he and Viggo had never dated. It wasn't that Viggo didn't do such things, all evidence to the contrary- apparently he'd had a relationship with a girl named Exene that had lasted for almost his entire freshman year, although Billy was going entirely on hearsay for that one. It wasn't that they weren't compatible, either, or didn't find each other attractive. It had just turned out, somehow, that they were great friends who had skirted, once, the possibility of being something more.

 

It was a Friday, one of the awful kind where the real library staff all trickled out early and Billy spent the last hour of his shift counting down minutes and digging fingernails into the back of his neck to keep himself awake. When the five-minutes-to-closing announcement crackled through the PA system he dragged himself up the three flights of stairs and across the quad more or less just to continue zoning out somewhere else. The dining hall was packed; he stood in the stir-fry line for almost fifteen minutes, dumped his food into a to-go carton, and took it home to eat while he poked at his email.

It was a close thing, but he eventually dredged up enough energy for the walk across campus to Viggo's. It was a good choice. Viggo had a suite in the newest building on campus; not only was it clean and gorgeous and free from the centipedes that lived in the sophomore dorms, but something about it always felt homier than Billy's single, where no amount of decoration could ever really disguise the scratched-linolium-and-flourescent-lighting décor.

Bean answered his knock, propping the heavy door with his shoulder and gesturing for Billy to squeeze by him.

"Hey, Bill," he said, and then somewhat unnecessarily, "it's Billy!"

"Got that, thanks," called Andy from the common space. He waved as Billy rounded the corner of the kitchen.

"Come to join us in watching the most excruciatingly boring film in the history of the world?" asked Bernard.

"Can't say that I have." He nodded a hello to the third person on the couch, a girl he didn't know who was frowning tiredly at the laptop propped in front of them. She didn't seem to notice.

"Are you sure? It's riveting. There's a woman washing dishes. Earlier she made potatoes."

"If I'd wanted your expert commentary on all the movies I wouldn't have dropped the class," said Bean from where he was halfheartedly stirring something on the stove. It was going to be macaroni and cheese, by the look of things, the really awful neon orange kind.

"You want anything?" he asked Billy, though it was a little drowned out by Andy's best sportscaster voice.

"And she picks up the pot! Oh, look at that scrubbing technique! Really making the most of that running water, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh my god, I think I actually fell asleep," said the mystery girl. Billy felt like he should probably introduce himself but it was kind of awkwardly too late now.

"No, thanks," he said instead, turning his back on them to talk to Bean. "Is Viggo around?"

"In his room, as far as I know."

"Actually, right here," said the man himself. Bean pointed a colander at him.

"You are a freakish and terrifying person. Stop doing that."

"Sorry. You coming, Bill? I think the common room's been usurped for the night."

"Only for the aesthetic and innovative majesty of one of the foremost feminist films ever made!" called Bernard.

"Now she's drying silverware," added Andy.

Billy grinned and followed Viggo back to his room.

 

The two of them were, if not the best, then certainly the most serious musicians in LOTS. Ian had training in performance but none in theory and John was frighteningly serious about his choral ambitions, but only contributed maybe one piece per semester. He was abroad this year anyway, and the rest were just hobbyists, so that left Billy and Viggo to hash out their repertoire.

They were working on an arrangement of Blue Ridge Mountains by the Fleet Foxes, which had the potential to be amazing but was also causing them a shameful amount of trouble given their respective major and minor in music. And every time he mentioned it someone started singing John Denver.

At the moment it was driving him slightly insane. Billy sighed, pushing his laptop off his stomach in favor of a full-body stretch. He'd started out sitting on Viggo's bed, leaning against the wall, but as the hours went by he'd slid gradually more and more horizontal. The position he was in now was probably not the best for his neck, but he didn't have the energy to sit up properly.

Viggo was across the room, picking out a modified guitar line on the keyboard balanced across his cluttered desk. Billy tried to hum along with it and winced.

"You know none of us can sing that high, right?"

Viggo shot him a grin.

"You can."

"Not if you want it to sound like music."

"We'll just warm you up a lot first. Or maybe kick you in the groin at an opportune moment."

"Yeah, no thanks."

Viggo started, then pulled his mobile out of his pocket. "I don't know what kind of team player you are if you won't even sacrifice your nuts for the sake of the group," he said as he flipped it open. "Hey, Sean."

Billy grinned. He'd heard similar things himself often enough to suspect that Viggo did it on purpose.

"Billy," Viggo said, and then, "I just want to improve his range a bit. What's up?"

A longer silence. Billy pulled up his email, more out of habit than anything.

"Please tell me you're kidding," said Viggo in a tone that didn't bode well at all. "But she's our keynote speaker on Sunday! What do you mean she didn't- hang on. Sorry, Bill, this is gonna be a minute."

SAGA, of course- they were putting together an ally training conference that even Billy knew about, given how much Astin had been stressing out about it.

"Take your time," he said through a yawn, and was promptly left alone.

After a moment he decided he couldn't bear to look at Blue Ridge Mountains anymore and pulled up an original piece instead, something mostly he'd been sketching out in bits as he walked to class. He kind of wanted to show it to Viggo, but he also wanted to wait until he had something less pretentious than his working title, which was "Mist and Shadow."

"Bill. Billy," Viggo was saying. He blinked, and then blinked again. It had gotten dimmer; just the table lamp was on. He blew out a long breath, trying to pull his thoughts together.

"How long did I sleep?"

"An hour, give or take."

"Sean took an hour? Where's my laptop?"

"Nah, but you were dead to the world, I figured I'd leave you to it. Your computer's on my desk."

"Fuck. Sorry."

"No need to apologize. I gotta get some sleep, though, so either shove over or get up."

"Mm," said Billy after a moment of consideration, and rolled toward the wall.

He had a very good idea of where this was going. It was a measure of how well-liked Viggo was that he got the label "sex positive" rather than "slut," but either way it was no secret, and even less so in their group of friends. The list Billy knew probably wasn't complete, either, because Viggo kept secrets when asked.

The light clicked off. He felt more awake in the dark for some reason, surer of what he wanted. He held still while Viggo settled in and then turned, tilted his head up, made it clear. The bed shifted as Viggo pushed up on one elbow, leaning over him to whisper,

"Can I kiss you?"

It was a joke, a catchphrase from a canned anti-rape talk presented at every freshman orientation, and Billy had never believed the speaker's claim that it could be erotic- not until he could feel Viggo rumbling it from an inch away, vibrations where they were pressed together chest to chest and breath on his ear.

"I can't believe you just said that," he whispered back. Viggo grinned at him, lazy and pleased, and he wanted to flip them but dorm beds were basically contraception devices and that would end with them both on the floor, or maybe getting fined for breaking furniture. He nudged Viggo back instead, put a hand on his chest to keep him there and shifted over himself. It got his legs tangled in the blankets and by the time he sorted it out they were both laughing, still quiet, though, charged. And then Viggo moved, nudged him to the side and spread his legs and suddenly they fit, snug together all the way down.

"Yes," Billy said, because anyone who actually asks deserves an answer, but he kissed Viggo first anyway.

The bed, as it turned out, was creaky as well as unfortunately narrow. Billy didn't really care. Viggo's hands were incredible, dry-hot and rough, and they were currently up the back of Billy's shirt with an enthusiasm that suggested they might soon be elsewhere. He pulled back for a minute, contemplating the logistics of getting Viggo's shirt off, and just then, in that moment, decided. He was tired of not being sure whether he was a virgin, or not a virgin, or half a virgin, or maybe some of SAGA's mentality had rubbed off on him after all, but he wanted to _know_.

"Hey, V," he said, "will you fuck me?"

"Sure," said Viggo. There was a familiar half-smile on his face and faint bite marks on his neck that Billy kind of liked. "First time?"

"Yeah."

"Sure," he said again, easy as anything, and pulled Billy back down to kiss.

 

Saturday morning sunlight found Billy awake but not well rested, which wasn't much of a surprise. Maybe it was a lack of practice, but he didn't even share large and comfortable beds well, and Viggo's had neither of those characteristics. What was surprising was that he was alone. He remembered half-waking whenever Viggo shifted in the night; it was hard to believe that an entire morning routine hadn't disturbed him.

The clock on the bedside table said 10:24 a.m. There wasn't much to do besides put on his clothes from yesterday, wincing at the state of his boxers, and then, well. He headed for the common room, trying to surpass a blush and wishing he didn't know firsthand how thin the dorm walls were.

It wasn't that bad, as it turned out. Three people were up: Bernard, eating toast in his pajamas and looking half-asleep, Sean reading on the couch, and Viggo rummaging around the refrigerator. They were all looking his way, probably from hearing him open Viggo's door as he ventured out.

"Morning," he offered, and had it echoed raggedly back at him. That was all from Bernard. Sean and Viggo had an indecipherable three-glance conversation that Billy really hoped meant _you two won't be stirring up drama in FOTS, will you?_ rather than _are you completely insane and have you no taste?_ Either way, Sean gave him a brief smile and went back to his reading, so it couldn't have been that bad.

Billy filled the tea kettle and set it on to boil. He liked that he spent enough time here to just do that for himself, to jam the faulty lid properly so that it would whistle. Bernard offered him a piece of toast. He took it and a seat at the counter and settled down to wait, flipping through an outdated literary magazine that someone had left lying around.

Viggo ended up making sweet and sour cabbage for breakfast. Billy stuck to his tea.

He didn't really feel like he'd learned anything new about himself, but that was all right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Characters: Dom Monaghan, Elijah Wood, (Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin)  
> Chapter Pairings: none

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVENT VERSECANON: none, surprisingly.

Halfway through FOTS callbacks they took a ten-minute break to stand around sipping water and being awkward at each other. They were evenly matched, five old members (blue nametags) and five prospective (green nametags). Dom thought he was running third, counting Elijah as a guaranteed acceptance and a startlingly attractive boy called Orlando who was closer to his level but had a better range.

"Wait, didn't someone VP?" asked Sean (the one whose actually had "Sean" on his nametag rather than a drawing of a green bean), rifling through the questionnaires they'd filled out. "Who knows how to beatbox?"

Elijah raised his hand halfway. "Just screwing around, though, I've never done it with a group or anything."

"Would you give us a demonstration? If you don't mind, I know I'm putting you on the spot," said Ian.

"Um, okay." Elijah put down his water bottle and shifted from foot to foot, thinking. Dom tried not to look too excited. Elijah was a tiny cross-eyed white boy with a backpack that bent him almost double, and he was also the best beatboxer Dom had ever met. No one ever saw it coming.

Elijah appeared to reach a decision. He raised a hand over his mouth, a familiar mischievous look on his face- he wasn't going to, was he?- yes, he was.

" _Bm ka tssk ku sza, bm cha bm ka tssk ka tsa,_ " he started. There was one laugh among the impressed murmuring; someone had recognized the beat. Elijah, still going, waggled an eyebrow at Dom.

He couldn't really pass up a challenge like that. He strode over, getting close so he could grind up on Elijah. Hopefully he wasn't about to give up his shot at an acceptance.

"Whatcha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside that trunk?" He was using his best American accent, which he'd been told was atrocious. It was also slipping every other word because he was trying so hard not to join in the laughter that had started halfway through the first line. He kept it together until _my lovely lady lumps_ , at which point Orlando laughed so hard that he tipped his chair backward and started flailing wildly in an attempt to regain his balance.

"Can't breathe!" wheezed Elijah, abandoning the beat. Dom collapsed in his chair. Viggo (or Veeeeeeggo, according to his nametag) turned to whisper to Ian, but he was laughing too hard to have proper control of his voice and Dom, seated right next to him, thought he could make out the words,

"Can we keep them?"

Ian didn't respond, just dropped his head on the keyboard with a jangle and waved a hand weakly in Viggo's direction.

Dom fistbumped Elijah, low-down and discreet between their chairs.

He had a good feeling about this.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Characters: Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Daisy Wenham (Miranda Otto, Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen)  
> Chapter Pairings: Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan, others mentioned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RELEVANT VERSECANON: If you've read previous chapters, none.
> 
> If you're starting here: FOTS is Fellowship of the Singers, an a cappella group. Dom, Elijah, and Orlando are its newest members. Dom and Elijah are freshman roommates. SAGA is the Sex And Gender Alliance, whose officers include Viggo and Sean Astin (both FOTS members) and Daisy Wenham the radical genderfucker. Sean Astin was Elijah's Orientation Leader.
> 
> msilverstar beta'd this chapter (<3), but I didn't entirely listen to her, so the remaining faults are mine.

Daisy's twentieth birthday party was audible from half a block away, which was at least useful for identifying the correct house. Miranda was hosting, as noise and alcohol and a lot of underage drinkers didn't really add up to something you could do in the sophomore dorms, and while Billy would count her as a friendly acquaintance he'd had no idea where she lived before tonight.

He and Daisy were more or less polar opposites and had probably been destined for nothing more than vague mutual recognition before fate stepped in and assigned them as freshman roommates. It was an arrangement that had worked out surprisingly well. It was also, not coincidentally, how he knew Miranda- the two of them had been having casual, if near-constant, sex since they boarded the same flight over from Australia, if Daisy was to be believed. He was prone to exaggeration, but then again he was also the type of person prone to having sex on airplanes, so it was kind of a toss up.

Miranda herself opened the door in a flood of heat and sound. Her hair was an artful cascade of curls and she was wearing a skirt and a sort of short-sleeved sweater thing with a gigantic collar that looked undeniably fashion-y, even to Billy. He found himself raising his eyebrows, startled; it was a lot more put together than he was used to seeing Miranda. Frankly, it was a lot more _clothed_ than he was used to seeing Miranda.

"Billy! Come on up, glad you could make it."

"So am I," he said, squeezing after her up the narrow stairs.

"It feels like I haven't seen you at all since we got back to school."

Billy started to reply, checked his first impulse, then remembered who he was talking to and went with it.

"Well, you're not fucking my roommate on a regular basis this semester."

She laughed as the got to the top of the stairs. "True enough. There he is, if you want to brave the crowd of admirers. Help yourself to whatever, three dollars if you're going to drink."

Billy handed them over, eyes on Daisy across the room. He was wearing full drag for the occasion and appeared to be demonstrating some kind of lap dance technique on Karl, who was bright red but laughing hysterically.

"I think I'll catch him later," he said, and made for the kitchen instead.

It took a good five minutes to fight his way to the drink table and back out again, beer in hand. He kept getting dragged into conversations with drunkenly enthusiastic people he hadn't talked to since the end of last year, mostly because they weren't actually friends. Daisy had vanished by the time he got out of the crush.

Billy leaned against the back of a couch, scanning the room. The place where Daisy and Karl had been had turned impromptu dance floor, occupied very enthusiastically by the three freshman he was probably going to think of as "the newbies" for at least a year, if the way the upperclassmen talked about him and Sean was anything to go by.

It was a surprise to find himself looking at Dom- a surprise, but not a problem, not yet. There was something different about Dom this way. He was a fidgeter, usually, but from energy rather than nerves, and right now all that energy was somehow focused, contained and dangerous. It made him seem older.

Dom was wearing eyeliner again, reminiscent of the day they'd met, and his hair was growing out from the tight buzz he'd come to school with. Billy wondered if he'd follow the general university trend and let it get long enough to get your hands in; Billy wanted to get _his_ hands in it, Billy couldn't bring himself to look away from the way Dom moved, the wide leather band around one wrist, the shape of his shoulders, and still it wasn't a problem. Different, new, but not a problem.

So he was watching, unconcerned, when Orlando wrapped big hands around Dom's hips and tugged, pulled Dom back against himself, both of them laughing, and something familiar and unexpected twisted low in Billy's stomach and said _no hands there but mine_.

That was when Billy realized just how much trouble he was in.

"See something you like?" asked Daisy over his shoulder, impeccably timed and smirking. Billy turned to give him a one-armed hug.

"I was wondering where you'd got to. Happy birthday."

Daisy in full drag was...arresting, was perhaps the best word for it. There was a curly blond wig involved, along with a slinky silver dress and a lot of makeup. He hip-checked Billy—rib-checked, really, given the addition of several-inch heels to the existing height difference—and settled in against the back of the couch. Billy was startlingly glad to see him. There had been no question that they'd both wanted single rooms this year, but he'd missed Daisy, missed the ease of the relationship they'd developed through forced cohabitation, completely comfortable with one another rather than close.

"Thank you very much," said Daisy, "but don't think you're distracting me. Come on, who've you got your eye on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Orlando? I bet it's Orlando. He's your type, isn't he?"

He was, too, much moreso than Dom. Orlando was fun and even-keeled and bloody gorgeous, and Billy couldn't keep his eyes on him for a second.

"Orlando's everyone's type," he said.

"Can't deny that," said Daisy, giving the object of their conversation a once-over with the total lack of insecurity that came with being a heterosexual man who liked to wear dresses in public. "Apparently Viggo fucked him after the first SAGA meeting."

"I'm so surprised I may faint," Billy deadpanned, and Daisy laughed with the volume of someone not quite sober. In fact, Billy was a little surprised, though more about the implications for FOTS than about the hookup itself; he'd heard Viggo's impassioned speech on casual sex numerous times. He wondered how Orlando felt about it. Maybe it would pay to keep an eye on them in rehearsals.

"So was I right?" asked Daisy. "Orlando?"

"I think you're just eyeing him yourself and want to pass off the blame on me."

"Nah, I'd rather Elijah, don't you think?"

"You want to corrupt the baby?"

"Best time for it," said Daisy, grinning. "Besides, he'd be awfully pretty, don't you think?"

"Prettier than you, that's for sure," said Billy, and got another elbow to the ribs for his trouble. It was true, though—Daisy's version of corruption had less to do with sex and more to do with the sudden desire to say fuck the binary, and he was good at getting what he wanted. Billy would put money on seeing Elijah's name on future drag show programs, if not this year than definitely next.

"It's a pity about his dancing, though," said Daisy, and Billy had to tear his eyes away from Dom- again, oh god- to snort a laugh at Elijah's flailing.

"Daisy!" yelled a boy Billy didn't recognize, leaning around the kitchen doorway. "Are you going to come do shots or not?"

"Duty calls?" asked Billy. Daisy stood and tugged his dress down, not that it was preserving much of his virtue even at its full length.

"Looks like it. See you later?"

"Definitely."

 

Billy made himself go once around the party to be a little more social and a little less obvious. There weren't all that many people he wanted to talk to. He and Daisy tended to run in overlapping social circles, but mostly on opposite edges of them, and a good portion of this crowd was the SAGA clique. Billy attended SAGA meetings maybe twice a semester and had never gotten embroiled in the tangled web of sex, romance, and gossip that made up most of their interactions. Unfortunately, this meant that whenever Billy actually ended up at an event with them he felt like he was wearing a sign that said "uninvolved fresh meat!" with an arrow. Pointing down. It would have been flattering if he'd actually been looking for a hookup, but he was mostly just tired of guys blocking his way so they could flirt.

At least a good portion of FOTS was there. Elijah had abandoned the dance floor in favor of an earnest conversation with Sean, bent close together to hear each other over the noise of the party. Orlando and Dom took a break for drinks and returned, cups in hand, to be joined by a girl Billy was fairly sure was one of Miranda's housemates. He even tracked Viggo down after a while, climbing in an upstairs window with a group of people who'd apparently been smoking on the roof.

That made for a good distraction. He chatted with Viggo for a while, almost managing not to track Dom's presence through the house, and was about to ask about the conquest of Orlando when Viggo suddenly hit that phase of high where he was _inspired_ and _needed to write things down_.

Billy obediently trotted off for a stack of napkins and sat to watch Viggo scribble. He had a feeling that a lot of the words got lost in the time-delay between Viggo's brain and his fingers, but his output in situations like these still tended to be pretty incredible. Billy had a sketch of himself done in a similar state, surprisingly true to life for Viggo's usual artistic tastes, except there was a stream of wagon wheels bouncing off his chin and flying all over the paper.

You kind of had to wonder what went on in Viggo's brain sometimes.

"What are you writing about?" he asked, after a few minutes of mumbling and torn napkins. You never knew—sometimes it ended up profound and terrifying, and sometimes…

"Cheerios," said Viggo, wide-eyed and deadly serious.

Which would make a hilarious story, yes, but the problem was that Viggo actually would just sit there and write intently about Cheerios for at least half an hour before you could get his attention again.

 

Billy left him to it and wandered back to get another beer. Dom was dancing again, hair spiky and shirt clinging with sweat, and after a minute stalled in the doorway Billy just gave up and found himself someplace inconspicuous to watch. He was half in his head, trying to reconcile what this meant and what he was going to do about it, when Elijah bounced up.

"Hey, Billy," he said, cracking the knuckles of each hand with the opposite fist, fluid and somewhat disturbing. It was a nervous tick that Billy was already used to three weeks into the school year.

"What's up, Elwood?"

"Not much. I was wondering how long you were planning on staying."

"Not sure yet, why?"

"Well, I was gonna walk Dom home, but I think I actually might leave now-" Billy followed his glance toward the door, where Sean and Christine were waiting, giggling, watching Elijah. Trouble coming there, too, anyone with eyes could see it, but not his business. "-and I was wondering if you could make sure he got back all right. I mean, you seem sober, and it won't be a big deal, I'm sure he'll go whenever you want to."

Billy was pretty sure Dom could get back on his own just fine, if maybe a little slower than usual, but Elijah was kind of adorable in his Determined To Be Responsible About Alcohol freshman phase.

Which was definitely the only reason he was doing this, he thought sternly an hour later, following Dom down the stairs. Just like he was definitely only watching to make sure Dom's balance was okay. Right.

The night air was a welcome relief after the stuffy, overcrowded party. Dom spread his arms and tilted his head back as they walked up the street.

"God, it's gorgeous out." He turned and grinned widely at Billy. A happy drunk, apparently. "That was _amazing_."

"What, the party?"

"Yes. Yes, the party. I will save you my rendition of 'I Could Have Danced All Night,' but only because I don't know you very well yet." He hummed it under his breath a little, though, and Billy couldn't help but laugh.

"I had no idea you were so into dancing. There are a couple of eighteen-plus clubs around, you know."

"No, that's not it. It's just _different_ here. The party. You're probably used to it."

Billy worked on that for a moment, steering them toward the campus gates.

"I have no idea what you're on about," he said eventually.

"The party!" said Dom again. He'd lost that strange, focused quality he'd had on the dance floor, but when drunk a lot of his energy seemed to go into expansive hand gestures. "I wasn't in the closet at home or anything, but it was _different_. It was like everyone thought the way to be supportive was just to ignore it completely, to make out like it wasn't a big deal or anything. That or sit down and have very serious emotional talks. You know what I mean?"

"Not exactly, but I can imagine it," said Billy. He hadn't been out at home but he hadn't wanted to, less for fear than just because he wasn't the loud-and-proud type.

"And it was like, because I was gay I was supposed to want to dance with all my girl friends in a group or something! No! That makes no sense! I want to dance with a _guy!_ That's what gay _means!_ "

"That is a bit ridiculous," said Billy. Dom immediately deflated from his rant and looked round, smiling again, like he was glad to share the joke.

"It is, though, isn't it? I wonder who thought that up."

They walked in silence for a moment, striking out diagonally across the main lawn.

"It's just nice, you know?" Dom said after a bit. "No one here is supportive. They're just, like, pleased. Cool. Someone hit on me tonight!"

"Who?" asked Billy, managing casual despite his stomach locking up again, quick as lightening. This wasn't even Dom dancing, which basically doing the vertical version of the horizontal tango with another man. This was Dom a little drunk and rambling about himself, making their way across campus at one thirty in the morning. Trouble, trouble, trouble.

"Oh, some kid with a ponytail," Dom was saying. "That's not the point. The point is, someone did. No one who tells you they're supportive will ever hit on you. It's like a thing. The two just don't go together." He half-turned again to look at Billy, remembering something else. "I tried to go to the bathroom and there were two guys making out in there!"

"And you were excited about that?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, not _excited_ excited. You know what I mean. That it happened at all."

"Trust me, the novelty wears off fast," said Billy, but he was laughing again, mostly at the way Dom had sheepishly stuffed his hands in his pockets like he was aware of being a little too enthusiastic.

"Yeah, it's-" said Dom, and then stopped, cocking his head to the side. "What's that?"

"What?"

"That hissing sound, from over there."

Biily heard it too, from over on Dom's left, steady and quiet.

"Oh my god, it's the sprinkler system. I forgot all about it! Come on, let's get on the path."

"The sprinkler system? Oh- I see what you mean," said Dom, as the little black cylinders shot up and whooshed out their low umbrellas of spray, missing them by only a few feet.

"They always come on at stupid times of night. Oh, no." More hissing, this time from the right.

"Path! Fall back to the path!" cried Dom, with more wild hand gestures. "Aah, I think I'm standing on one!"

"No falling on the grenade, it's not worth it!" said Billy, tugging Dom back with him. They were both laughing, the can-you-believe-it laugh of people caught together in bad weather, and maybe Dom was drunker that Billy had thought, because he stumbled when Billy pulled and couldn't seem get his feet back under him at all.

"Don't let them get me," he panted, still cracking up, and the two of them staggered a few feet in a listing tangle before Billy managed to get them balanced. Dom was heavy and solid against his side, his arm impossibly hot around Billy's neck.

"Well," said Dom, once everything was calm again, "that was an adventure." He hadn't moved away from Billy's side, just straightened up to look at the lawn. It was covered entirely with sprinklers; they'd have to go around. "Although if the campus has any more stealth attacks up its sleeve you'd better remember them now."

"No, I think we're safe," said Billy. "And there's a hissing sound preceding each sprinkler, so we can avoid those."

"But what about R.O.U.S.'s?" asked Dom, ruining his attempt at frightened heroine eyes with a snort.

"Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist," said Billy, and then stopped to consider. "Well, maybe in the east sophomore dorms. Seriously, don't ever live there. Having to walk halfway across campus is better, I swear they have evil mutant mice."

"Didn't that building used to be a veterinary school?"

"My point exactly. They probably got the weird trial medicine or something and it turned them into evil mouse scientists. With superpowers."

"And they lay in wait for forty years for students to move into the building?"

"Could be."

"Do you have any idea how many mouse generations that would be?"

"Hey, you can live there if you want, just don't say I didn't warn you."

 

It took two tries for Dom to wrestle the lock on his dorm into cooperation, but that could have been a reflection on the building just as easily as anything else.

"Thanks for walking with me," he said.

"Anytime."

"And saving me from kamikaze sprinklers."

"That doesn't even make sense, but you're welcome."

Dom turned so he could prop the door with his body, facing out, and in an instant Billy knew exactly how this was going to go.

"You wanna come up for a bit?" Dom asked, casual, quoting a script just as much as he'd been earlier. There wasn't any ambiguity about it—they both knew Elijah was out with Sean, and you couldn't even offer the pretense of coffee or tea in the freshman dorms, not unless you wanted microwave-heated bathroom tap water in the only available mug.

Billy thought of how happy Dom was to be somewhere where someone, anyone, wanted him, regardless of who it was, how young he was and new to everything. He thought about how Dom had stumbled by the sprinklers and fumbled the lock and how Billy didn't, as a rule, sleep with drunk people, how he didn't even really do casual sex. He thought about all of that and his eyes caught on Dom's eyelashes, the leather on his wrist, his hips cocked against the weight of the door, caught on the memory of how he'd moved, and Billy still might have said yes.

He might have said yes, except that he really, genuinely _liked_ Dom. FOTS had only held five rehearsals with the newbies so far, just a handful of hours, and he already knew that Dom's sense of humor fit with his perfectly, was already thinking about proposing to meet him for lunch during the week, already knew that this was a friendship he wanted in his life.

Sleeping with Dom when Dom was drunk and giddy and just looking for somebody male, when Billy had just figured out that he was maybe in a little over his head, when they had to work together three or four times a week for the next three years...well. Maybe it would have turned out fine, but Billy wasn't really a natural risk taker, not with things he cared about.

"Nah, I gotta get back, I'm about to pass out," he said. "I'll see you at rehearsal tomorrow, though?"

"Sure thing," said Dom, and lifted a long-fingered hand in farewell as he let the door swing shut.

Billy turned and headed back to his own dorm, water from the sprinklers seeping into his shoes. He couldn't shake Dom's image out of his mind's eye, not from the party but stopped in his doorframe, backlit and still and hopeful as he waited for an answer.

Billy thought: this is going to change things.


End file.
